Crackdown on charities
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1994:
Assistant Treasury Secretary Leslie Samuels on March 17 proposed to
allow the Internal Revenue Service to impose sanctions on charities whose executives
receive excessive compensation and fringe benefits. Executives whose compensation
violates yet-to-be-established IRS guidelines would be forced to repay the charities.
The Philanthropic Advisory Service, a division of the Council of
Better Business Bureaus, has added to its 22 standards for charities a requirement
that direct mailings must state whether the organization is counting any part of their
cost as a program expense. The disclosure must appear in the body of the appeal,
in type no smaller and no less prominent than the rest of the text. Many national
animal and habitat protection charities write off a significant amount of their direct
mail fundraising expense as “public education.” (For a list of charities that do, see
the December 1993 ANIMAL PEOPLE feature “Who Gets The Money?”, or
send $2.00 to POB 205, Shushan, NY 12873 for a copy.)
